Sunday, July 01, 2012

Rodolfo F. Acuña: Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty A Stupid Question

The day the
Supreme Court
handed down its decision Arizona’s SB 1070, I received about a
dozen text
messages saying, “We won!”

Knowing the
history of the
Court and dealing with this sort of wrongheaded thinking since
the Bakke Case
of 1978, I knew that I had to be skeptical and quickly read
the incoming news,
which using boxing jargon said that it was a split decision,
that the court had
struck down three key provisions of the law and kept one.

I could
hardly see this as a
victory and texted back, “Bullshit!”

Inevitably
friends and foe
alike shoot back the refrain, “Rudy, why do you always see the
glass as half empty
instead of half full?” I am so used to that inane question
that I have canned a
response; “because my mother did not raise a pendejo!”

I would be
pretty stupid if I
went to Starbuck’s and asked for a full cup of coffee and only
got a half a cup
and paid for the full cup. Even the server asks, “Do you want
to make room for
cream and sugar?” A
half a cup is not a
full cup no matter how you cut it.

But stupid
comments about
the glass being half full or half empty have been a way of
coping with the
reality that our liberties are being whittled away.

How could
anyone in their
right mind believe that Justice Antonin Scalia would be fair
which would
require “judicial restraint,” implying a degree of
impartiality. Scalia told us
where he stood when he said of President Obama’s ruling
exempting students from
deportation:

“After
this
case was argued and while it was under consideration, the
secretary of homeland
security announced a program exempting from immigration
enforcement some 1.4
million illegal immigrants. The president has said that the
new program is ‘the
right thing to do’ in light of Congress’s failure to pass the
administration’s
proposed revision of the immigration laws. Perhaps it is,
though Arizona may
not think so. But to say, as the court does, that Arizona
contradicts federal
law by enforcing applications of federal immigration law that
the president
declines to enforce boggles the mind.”

There
was
little comment in the media that Scalia has received thousands
of dollars from
the Koch Brothers for speaking engagements as well as from
organizations
associated with ALEC, American Legislative Exchange
Council,
American Legislative Exchange Council, the
godparents of SB 1070.

The first
reports had the
anti-1070 forces winning, declaring that the high court struck
down “most of
Arizona’s immigration law.” It later amended it to read “the
Supreme Court
upholds a key part of Arizona’s immigration laws and strikes
down other parts.”

This
touched off a Laker
mentality among many Latinos who chanted “we won, we are
number 1.”

Latinos
were elated even
though they had gotten a half cup of coffee and paid for the
full cup.

In all this
the Constitution
of the United States has been trampled. A basic principle is
that the federal
system “has the legal
authority and
responsibility to control immigration, and establish the
conditions under which
people from other countries can come to the U.S.”

Arizona agriculture has benefited hugely
from government
labor policy and government subsidies that include massive
reclamation programs
and the handing out of millions of acres of land to private
corporations.

Arizona, a
freeloader state
receiving over $1.30 cents back for every dollar it sends to
Washington D.C..
It shows its appreciation by trying to usurp its power.

Although
most of Arizona's
law is incompatible with federal law, Scalia and his gaggle of
corporate pimps
ignore the reality that Arizona is attempting to nullify the
rights and duties
of the federal government.

The
argument that the
federal government is not enforcing immigration law does not
hold water. Again,
Washington DC has sole power in enforcing immigration law.

The
Confederacy attempted to
nullify the Constitution and used the pretext that the federal
government was
not enforcing the Fugitive Slave Laws. A bloody Civil War was
waged and many
believed that the issue was settled.

Logically,
the Court’s
ruling was all over hell; it weakened the federal preemption
powers by
vacillating on the right of state officers to arrest
immigrants for being
deportable.

It did and it didn’t uphold the “show me your
papers” provision,
which requires state and local police to determine the
immigration status of
anyone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant during
traffic stops and
other detentions.

At the same
time it says
that is alright if someone is stopped for reasons other than
to inquire about
immigration status. Then officers are free to inquire as to
immigration status just
as they can ask about outstanding warrants or a criminal
record.

Incredibly,
the plaintiffs did
not raise questions about racial profiling in their briefs,
which is clearly
prohibited by the Constitution.

Let’s face
it, it is
impossible to enforce this kind of law without relying on
discriminatory
stereotypes based on skin color or accent. As one critic put
it,

“Under
the
Arizona statute approved by the Supreme Court today, the
simple acts of taking
one’s children to school, buying groceries, or attending
church will put citizens
and noncitizens alike at risk of being racially profiled and
unlawfully
detained at the side of the road – or worse, locked up in
jail…”

What
concerns many of us is
that the decision encourages copy-cat laws. This will tie us
up in the courts for
years and millions of dollars will be wasted on litigation.

The Court
can pontificate
all it wants about racial profiling, but what about
compliance?

My mother
did not raise a
fool and I look no further that the statements of Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe
Arpaio who has defiantly said he will continue to racially
profiling Latinos,
and as well as making illegal stops and seizures in the
Phoenix area.

Georgia has
passed similar
laws and it does not matter to its politicos that the loss of
labor costs the
state over $1 billion annually. Mississippi, Alabama and even
Pennsylvania have
succumbed this lynch mob hysteria.

A Utah bill
requires police to
check the immigration status of anyone detained for a felony
or serious
misdemeanor, making checks discretionary for those suspected
of lesser
offenses.

Human
rights activists have exposed
pretexts that amount to avoidance.

It is a
shell game: the Court
strikes down the most controversial portions of 1070,
requiring police officers
to check the immigration status of people they stop, while
giving police license
to ask for the detainees papers under another pretext.

In
California, authorities do
not need the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Arizona's
"show me your
papers" immigration law to begin turning people over to the
federal
government for deportation, witness what is happening in
Escondido.

These
discussions always
bring me full circle to Tucson and HB 2281. I am not seeing
the glass half
empty when I say that for going on forty years Arizona has
violated the rights
of Mexican and Native American children and avoided compliance
with Brown v.
Board of Education.

My worse
fear is that a
ruling on HB 2281 will follow the example of 1070 and spread
to other states,
California included.

It is not a
case of seeing
the glass half empty to say that administrators such as
Superintendent of the
Tucson Unified School District John Pedicone are purposely
ignoring the needs
of Mexican American students and are ignoring studies that
prove effective methods
in teaching them.

As a
professional educator,
I know that the system is failing all students and to ignore
this historical
fact is criminal especially when the purpose is to line one’s
own pocket.

I have no
patience with
wrongheaded thinking such as the glass is half full or a half
a loaf is better
than none.

I know the
difference
between a Joe Arapaio who wears a white robe and Antonin
Scalia who wears a
black robe – the color shows that Scalia outranks Arapaio.

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